Tulare County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Tulare County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Tulare County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 155 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the California average of 23.5 minutes each way, a difference of 4.8 minutes.

Tulare County holds about 1.2% of California's population but accounts for roughly 1.0% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Tulare County would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,927 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Tulare County	18.6 min	37.3 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,818	1,100
California	23.5 min	47.0 min	196 hrs/yr	$6,065	2,449
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: California Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 18.6 minutes to get to work in Tulare County. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Tulare County

• Car: 90.9% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.1%
• Walked: 1.5%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: 0.4% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.2% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Tulare County: 3.9 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.2%).

Driving is 21% more common in Tulare County than the California average (90.9% vs 75.2%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Tulare County: 6.9 times less than the California average (0.4% vs 2.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Tulare County: 3.4 times less than the California average (0.1% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Tulare County: 3.4 times less than the California average (0.2% vs 0.7%).

Commute Mode Trends in Tulare County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Tulare County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	91.4%	3.5%	1.9%	1.5%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2010	90.9%	3.7%	2.1%	1.7%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.4%
2011	91.1%	3.8%	2.2%	1.5%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	91.1%	3.8%	2.1%	1.3%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.4%
2013	91.3%	3.4%	2.1%	1.5%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2014	91.7%	3.3%	2.0%	1.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	92.1%	3.1%	1.9%	1.2%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.4%
2016	92.6%	2.8%	1.7%	1.2%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%
2017	92.3%	3.1%	1.7%	1.4%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	92.2%	3.4%	1.7%	1.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	92.5%	3.7%	1.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	92.2%	4.3%	1.4%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	92.1%	4.9%	1.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2022	92.0%	5.2%	1.3%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	91.9%	5.6%	1.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	90.9%	6.1%	1.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2016 at 92.6%. Overall it fell from 91.4% in 2009 to 90.9% in 2024, down 0.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Tulare County: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 6.1% in 2024, up 2.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Tulare County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Tulare County?

The bars show when commuters in Tulare County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show California for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Tulare County9.2% California6.7%	9.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Tulare County7.9% California4.5%	7.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Tulare County6.9% California4.5%	6.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Tulare County10.4% California8.4%	10.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Tulare County8.7% California7.5%	8.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Tulare County13.0% California13.1%	13.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Tulare County12.6% California10.2%	12.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Tulare County8.5% California12.6%	8.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Tulare County2.7% California5.8%	2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Tulare County3.9% California8.6%	3.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Tulare County1.9% California3.9%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Tulare County1.3% California1.8%	1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Tulare County7.3% California6.9%	7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Tulare County5.7% California5.5%	5.7%

Tulare County California Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Tulare County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.1% across California. Early starts are more common than in California: 24.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.8% there. The morning rush looks much like California's: 42.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 43.3% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.2%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Tulare County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Tulare County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Tulare County next to California and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Tulare County
• California
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Tulare County	California	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:22 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:21 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:16 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:16 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:16 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:17 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:16 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Tulare County were on the road by 7:16 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:20 AM). That goes against the trend across California, where the typical commuter now leaves 6 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Tulare County now leave 22 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Tulare County has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Tulare County's commute time compare?

Metric	Tulare County	California	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.6 min	23.5 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.1%	17.2%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	2.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	2.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Tulare County is 18.6 minutes, shorter than the 23.5 minutes in California.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.9% in California. 1.5% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in California.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau